


your divorced reality

by 1001cranes



Series: WIP Amnesty [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Murder, Serial Killers, Sociopath Peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:31:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1001cranes/pseuds/1001cranes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter might be wooing Stiles with murder. Or railroading him. One or the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your divorced reality

**Author's Note:**

> This came about as a weird off-shoot to 'it fit me like a glove'. This time I sort of wanted to explore the idea that while Stiles might be the sarcastic asshole of the bunch, he is actually _not_ down with murder and terror and finding bits of people on his doorstep, what.
> 
> cosmo sex tip 381: because abject terror keeps relationships exciting!
> 
> There's basically a time skip in the middle where I lost interest.

[pretty AU from the season 2 finale, lalala, Season 3Awful never happened]

After Jackson de-kanima-ifies (dekanimizes?) into a regular werewolf, Gerard Argent explodes into a pile of ashy sludge that Deaton collects for some mysterious purpose, and Allison spends the summer in family bonding slash murder rehab with her father, things go more or less back to normal in Beacon Hills. Keeping in mind that Stiles’s version of normal has been irrevocably altered, but hey, silver linings, right?

They have weekly pack meetings. Nominally. Derek doesn’t look at Scott if he can’t help it, Boyd and Erica sequester themselves in a corner away from the others, and Stiles stands at Scott’s right side, trying to hide a flinch every time the words ‘Allison’ or ‘Argent’ are mentioned. It’s probably about as subtle as everyone else’s coping mechanism, but the things they collectively don’t talk about at this point could fill an ocean, and Stiles is still feeling raw enough to want to dive into the salt water later.

Then Mr. Harris goes missing.

On one hand, _who cares_. And on that same hand _celebration!_ , because Stiles is thinking about throwing a party and inviting every student Harris has ever been a dick to, i.e. pretty much everyone. Then the _wait fuck what if it’s supernatural_ panic hits because Beacon Hills has seen a roughly 500% increase in unexplained disappearances in the past eight months, and considering Lydia’s is the only one that hasn’t ended in death Stiles doesn’t think he’s overreacting.

Erica shrugs. “I mean, if I was going to pick one dickwad for someone to just get fed up and murder the old fashioned way, it would probably be Harris.”

"That… is a good point," Stiles says. "All right. Lay the motion on the table?"

Lydia sighs. “I move to -“

"I move to lay the motion on the table!" Stiles shouts. Lydia had implemented a modified parliamentary procedure after Isaac threatened to borrow his therapist’s feelings rainstick and beat them all with it. Their first few groups discussions had been turbulent sure, but it still felt a lot like a devil’s bargain. "At least until frogs come down from the sky or someone else goes missing."

He gets nearly drowned out by a round of ayes. Derek looks like he’s planning on going to check it out later - Stiles would put money on Boyd too, probably - but everyone else was more than happy to leave.

| |

When Stiles gets home, there’s a package on the porch. Cardboard, maybe eight inches by eight inches. The kind of box Amazon sends things out in all the time, like a book or a video game or a new controller (Scott still has a hard time controlling his werewolf strength when Mario Kart was involved), which is why Stiles picks it up to bring inside without thinking much about it.

Except the box is… wet.

Wet with blood leaking through the bottom. The box is fucking _bloody_ , goddamn it. Stiles absently wipes his hands on his hoodie, because what was one more bloodstain in the scheme of things, right? Life wasn’t fucked up enough with the monster of the month popping in and out whenever they damn well pleased, no. Blood boxes filled with god knows what on his doorstep, fucking great.

 _Bloody box on my porch_. Stiles texted. _Requesting werewolf backup._

Stiles closes his eyes. “You’ve got this, dude. Just open the box. Just check it out.” Because his mind doesn’t just go to the worst place possible at any given time, it leapt there and then started to make the worst of the worst even more elaborate.

 _Please don’t let it be dad_ , he thought. _Please don’t let this be a reenactment of Se7en, or a twist on The Godfather_. The top of the box was folded closed, each corner tucked under the other carefully, a bloody little pinwheel of potential death and trauma. Fuck. Stiles dug his fingers in under the edge of one, and pulled.

Sitting in the box, amidst a pile of red tissue paper, there was a heart.

| |

Stiles isn’t sure how he manages to call the Sheriff’s office through the spiraling, pulsing beginnings of a panic attack, but hearing his father’s voice helps to push it all back. Because at least the worst of the worst can’t have happened.

| |

"It’s a pig’s heart," Derek said. He doesn’t sound kind, exactly - Stiles doesn’t know what Derek trying to do ‘kind’ would even sound like - but it’s not particularly sassy, which is about as good as it gets. “Not human.”

"Good," Stiles says. "Actually, probably not good, because someone put a pig’s heart in a box on my porch. Either it was meant to freak me out - which, hey! mission accomplished! - or its the beginning of a spell, or some kind of weird supernatural thing like that time with the aswang, or -“

"We’ll figure it out," Boyd interrupts. It’s probably not so much a reassurance as simply hoping Stiles would shut up. Boyd’s unyielding disdain for Stiles is almost comforting in times like these. "Safe to say whoever it was dropped it off at your house because you’re the only human."

"I’m not the only human,” Stiles protests. There’s Allison, though dropping anything off at the Argent compound would probably result in getting shot, tazed, and tortured. There’s Lydia, sort of, although she isn’t really speaking to them and mostly just expects them to keep her informed on whether there’s something life threatening she should be on the lookout for. It smashes all of Stiles’s carefully constructed dreams, but he can’t say he doesn’t understand. If Scott was in London, what the fuck would Stiles care anymore? “But point taken. Not nearly as terrifying to werewolf senses.”

"Except for how it smells like stockyard." Isaac wrinkles his nose. "Can I get rid of it?"

"We should take it to Deaton," Derek says, wary. "Just in case." Derek doesn’t care for Deaton and Stiles isn’t particularly fond of the smug, withholding fucker either, but he’s the only magical resource they have.

"I’m staying here with Stiles," Scott says, stubbornly. He’s always geared for a fight with Derek, even though Derek has done nothing but roll over since - well, since.

"Fine." Derek scoops the box up and jerks his head towards the door. Erica, Boyd, and Isaac step away from where they’ve been leaning or perching and slip out. "Deaton should call if it’s anything."

The operative word being should. Sometimes Stiles thinks Deaton would let the apocalypse start just to see what would happen.

| |

After all of that Stiles is too keyed up to go to bed. Scott puts on Pacific Rim - action, not a lot of gore, happyish ending - and Stiles grabs his laptop to do research while watching Jaegers smash Kaiju. Scott, long used to Stiles’s ever-present multitasking, just makes popcorn.

It turns out pig hearts look a lot like human hearts. A lot of pig parts do, actually - they’d dissected a pig’s eye in biology last year, Stiles remembers belatedly - and pig hearts and human hearts both have four chambers and four vales. They’re roughly the same size. Apparently a human heart is shaped more like a trapezoid, and a pig’s like a valentine.

"Wait," Scott says. "Pig hearts look more like what hearts are supposed to look like than ours do?”

"It’s a wacky world, my friend." Otherwise there’s entirely too much mythology around hearts to even have an idea of where to begin, though Stiles is leaning towards something Egyptian. Maybe. "Wanna play Call of Duty?"

"Sure," Scott says agreeably, which is nice because Stiles usually slaughters him. Scott has an inexplicable knack for Katamari Dynasty though. They’ll play that next.

| |

"It’s weird," Stiles confesses, later, before they sleep. When it’s dark and quiet and he feels like he could admit anything, because it’s his bed and Scott and so, so quiet. "But for a second, I thought the heart was totally Harris’s."

"Weird," Scott agrees. They’re nearly nose to nose in Stiles’s bed.

"Although I guess if I had to pick _someone_ ,” Stiles starts, and Scott snorts hard enough that Stiles feels something spray on his face.

"Oh my god,” he shrieks, and kicks Scott onto the floor, and they’re still wrestling by the time Stiles’s dad finally comes home.

| |

When some hikers find Harris’s body the next day, Stiles probably should have put two and two together a little quicker. At the very least, Stiles should have come up with Bad News.

| |

After a week or two of rotating subs they get a long-term replacement for Chemistry called Mrs. Pirie. She has a slight accent no one can quite place, she’s sixty if she’s a day, and she eliminates Harris’s devastating pop quizzes for biweekly unit tests. Stiles is in love with her already.

"She’s great," he says again, dreamily, and Scott rolls his eyes. "You think my dad would want to date an older woman?"

"You are so weird," Erica sniffs. “Besides, as soon as I turn eighteen I’m going to be on your dad like a heat-seeking missile.”

“Oh, _sick_.”

"You can call me your step-mom," Erica says earnestly, and Stiles laughs hard enough to trip over his own feet.

| |

 

[oh hey stuff happens like MURDERS and Stiles gradually realizing that a) Peter is doing them and b) doing them for  _Stiles_ ]

 

"Stiles," Peter says, and he looks  _disappointed_. "If you won’t accept my gifts, you know I’m not above doing anything necessary to get what I want."

Stiles is, honestly, aware of most of his failings. He’s aware of the reality of his life. He'd underestimated Peter. He didn’t think he had - he thought he’d _ove_ restimated him, even, not much different than your average variety creep with a special supernatural bent, but Jesus Christ was he wrong. 

"Harris was a gift," Peter says, soft, and each word buries itself in Stiles’s like a barb. Hadn’t he been glad, a little, when he’d heard? Hadn’t he joked often enough about killing Harris himself? Who’s to say Peter hadn’t overheard, hadn’t taken every word to heart?

" _Why_ ," Stiles asks. It’s one of those sudden, unexpected moments where all the fight has drained out of him. He feels exhausted, and he doesn’t even have the energy to hide it. “Why are you so— Why are you doing this.”

"There’s the hard way, and the easy way, certainly," Peter says, dragging his claws across the surface of Stiles’s desk. Fucking it up like he’s fucking up every other part of Stiles’s life. "But what you don’t seem to understand is that both of them are pretty fun for me."

 

 

[then uhhh Stiles kind of tries to fight back but there was a whole subplot where Peter and Lydia were tied together magically because of the S2 shenanigans AND SO]

 

 

It’s like the opposite of a panic attack. Stiles feels just as removed from his body, but instead of feeling pushed out of it he feels totally in control, like his body is a puppet for him to command.

"If you ever hurt my dad," he says. "I’ll kill myself. And I know how to do it so you can’t bring me back. Do you understand?" Peter wants his plaything  _able_ , Stiles is sure.

Peter nods. “And?”

It’s smart, at least, to realize that wouldn’t be Stiles’s only condition. Just the automatic deal-breaker.

"Derek is the Alpha," he says, firmly. "He’s a shitty one, but you were a psychotic one, so consider this your pre-intervention. No Alpha powers."

Peter’s brain is already running a hundred miles a minute. “What about —”

"If you ever get an Alpha pinned down, I will cut its fucking head off myself," and the bright blue flare of Peter’s eyes --

Stiles takes a deep breath. "You’re a part of this pack," he continues. "Which means sharing your info, and pulling your weight, and not hurting anyone. Don’t undermine Derek."

"He does that enough himself."

"Do you want a family again?" Stiles asks bluntly. Like a boot to the only wound he knows Peter has. "Derek’s the only family you have left. Stop tripping him up, and he might one day have a functioning relationship and adult life. And a girlfriend, and little not-nieces and not-nephews you can spoil and have incredibly well-supervised contact with.”

"And you’re mine?"

Stiles pauses. The words don’t mean anything. It’s not a spell. Not even a contract, really.

"And I’m yours."

The pain when Peter bites him is both better and worse than what's come before. This, Stiles chose, in some measure. This he saw coming. 

"I’ll still try to kill you, you know," Stiles says, later, but it only makes Peter smile.

"How many bodies can your conscience really handle?" he asks. "Far less than you’d think, I imagine.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> WIP Status - pretty done with these bits, sorry murder friends


End file.
